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2.5.0

· 5 min read

Changes in This Release​

  • Command-line interface updates
    • User workspace is not automatically built every time MoveIt Studio is launched.
      • Allow switching between configuration packages without prompting to delete host-mounted configuration folder.
      • Improvements to Docker images by creating non-root users at container startup time.
      • Additional checks for user environment configuration at install and run time.
  • New Behaviors for AprilTag pose detection, including Detect Apriltags and Get Detection Pose.
  • New Transform Pose Behavior for modifying an existing pose object.
  • MoveIt Task Constructor Behavior updates
    • Split Setup MTC Pick Cuboid into separate Behaviors for approach, grasp generation, and retract. For more information, refer to the Migration Guide.
      • Behavior category name changed from "MTC" to "Task Planning".
      • New Behaviors to enable concurrent planning and execution, including Get Current Planning Scene, Setup MTC Fixed Joint State, Push To Solution Queue, and Wait and Pop Solution Queue
  • Run multiple MoveIt motion planners in parallel with Setup MTC Move To Joint State Behavior.
  • New moveit_studio_vision_msgs package which contains ROS 2 interfaces for AprilTag detections and graspable objects consisting of cuboids and planar surfaces.
  • Added ability to display cuboid objects from a MoveIt planning scene in the MoveIt Studio web app.
  • Removed built-in support for Kinova robots from the core MoveIt Studio package. For more information, see the Migration Guide.
  • Updates to Universal Robots example workspace
    • New machine tending simulation scene for default mock hardware configuration package.
      • Updated Gazebo configuration package to demonstrate AprilTag based pick and place applications.
      • Parallel sampling-based and joint interpolation planning is on by default when moving between Waypoints.
  • UI updates
    • Improved interactive marker performance.
      • Easier to select connection lines in Objective Builder.
      • Display planner names in trajectory previews.
      • Visible error message when WebGL for graphics rendering is unavailable in a web browser.
      • Automatically determine end effector coordinate frame name for endpoint and joint jogging.
      • Support arbitrary metadata categories for custom Behaviors in the sidebar.
      • Bug fixes.

Migration Guide​

Changes to Installing and Running MoveIt Studio​

Version 2.5.0 of MoveIt Studio introduces several improvements to the scripts used to install and run MoveIt Studio. Most of them will not affect usage, or will present additional prompts and/or error messages to ensure successful operation.

One major change relates to the use of user workspaces, which contain ROS packages with your custom user code and configurations.

In previous versions, the user workspace would automatically build whenever MoveIt Studio was launched. This could cause some delays and timeouts during first-time startup, or after code modifications, while the workspace was building. Because MoveIt Studio does not launch in verbose mode by default, it was not evident that these delays were due to source code compiling.

Starting with 2.5.0, the default example user workspace is automatically built at install time, but not when MoveIt Studio is run. If you make any source code changes to your user workspace, you must manually rebuild it using:

./moveit_studio build

If your workspace is not built, MoveIt Studio will throw an error prompting you to build before running. If your workspace is built, but your source code has changed since the last build, you must rebuild to get your changes into MoveIt Studio.

In previous versions, switching between robot configuration packages (for example, picknik_ur_mock_hw_config and picknik_ur_gazebo_config) would prompt users to delete the host-mounted configuration folder located at ${HOME}/.config/moveit_pro.

Starting with 2.5.0, there are separate configuration folders created for each package name, for example ${HOME}/.config/moveit_pro/picknik_ur_mock_hw_config. This enables you to switch between configuration packages without the need to delete the contents of this folder on your host system.

To discard any local changes to saved Waypoints or Objectives and revert to the settings in the configuration package source code, you must manually delete these folders or reinstall MoveIt Studio.

Updates to MoveIt Task Constructor and Cuboid Picking Behaviors​

In previous versions of MoveIt Studio, several Behaviors that used MoveIt Task Constructor (MTC) could be found in the list of Behaviors under the "MTC" category. For clarity, this category has been renamed to "Task Planning" in 2.5.0.

Additionally, the Setup MTC Pick Cuboid Behavior has been split into multiple Behaviors for approaching a grasp pose, generating grasp poses, and retracting from the grasp pose. This enables users to switch between different strategies for each of these sub-tasks; for example, using a parallel-jaw vs. vacuum gripper grasp generator.

As such, any Behaviors that use Setup MTC Pick Cuboid should be replaced with a combination of Setup MTC Approach Grasp, Setup MTC Generate Cuboid Grasps, and Setup MTC Retract From Grasp Behaviors.

Removal of Kinova Packages from Core MoveIt Studio Binaries​

Previous versions of MoveIt Studio included out-of-the-box support for some Kinova robot arms.

With the recent improvements of the ROS 2 drivers for the Kinova Gen3 Lite, and to reduce Docker image sizes, we have opted to move the Kinova MoveIt Studio configurations to a standalone repository.

For Kinova users looking to upgrade to 2.5.0 or beyond, please contact us for more information on migrating.